


The Girl Who Thrived

by imaginary_golux



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22624558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: Voldemort didn't think a girl could be his downfall. Harriet Jane Potter begs to differ.Beta by my Best of all Beloveds, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.
Relationships: Neville Longbottom/Harry Potter
Comments: 25
Kudos: 428
Collections: Extraordinary Harry Potter FanFics, February Ficlet Challenge 2020





	The Girl Who Thrived

Harriet Jane “Harri” Potter grows up lean and wild and confident, charms and hexes on her lips, her mother’s courage and her father’s cleverness blazing in her emerald eyes. She grows up in a wizarding house, with a stuffed toy her father transfigures into a different creature every night, and a werewolf for an uncle, and a godfather who’s often a great black dog.

She grows up in a world at peace, with two living parents, because Tom Riddle, arrogant as ever, refused to believe a girl-child could be a threat to him, and so Neville Longbottom bears a scar upon his forehead that marks his mother’s death, and the heavy title of the Boy Who Lived. Harry knows Neville well, because her mother is his godmother, and has made sure to keep in touch with the son of her dear friend. Harri and Neville have been playmates since they were two, friends since they were four, inseparable since they were seven. Harri leads their adventures, bright-eyed and eager; Neville follows, worried but determined.

When they are eleven, an antique hat Sorts them both into Gryffindor. Harri, in the grand old tradition of her ancestors - or at least her parents - joins forces with the Weasley twins to prank the Slytherins, excels at Charms and Transfiguration and most especially Defense, scandalizes and intrigues and finally befriends a bookish Muggleborn girl and the youngest son of the vast Weasley family, and hexes anyone who dares say a cruel word to her best friend, her almost-twin, her godbrother Neville.

She takes after her mother, does Harriet Jane Potter: she is loyal to her friends, fierce in their defense, gifted in the clever use of Charms. She takes after her father, does Harri ‘Prongslet’ Potter: she is kinder than she thinks she is, a leader of her cohort, a young prodigy in Transfiguration. And she is all herself, is Harri: she is scarily talented in Defense, a Seeker younger than any other, a hero despite all her parents and teachers do to prevent it.

It’s Neville who faces the monster in the mirror, but it’s Harri who got him there, leading a young chessmaster and a girl who has not yet forgotten logic in the world of magic, catching the key as ably as she ever catches a snitch; it’s Harri who sent Neville on, with a kiss on his cheek for luck, and it’s Harri who’s waiting in the Infirmary when he wakes, so it is only Harri that Neville tells about his merest touch burning their teacher to the bone.

It’s Neville who can hear the serpent whispering in the walls, but it’s Harri who snorts at anyone who dares suggest that Neville is some sort of serpent himself, who finds the tunnel when Hermione has named their enemy, who leads the way past shed skin and falling rocks to face Tom Riddle’s shade. It’s Neville who draws the sword from the Hat, but it’s Harri who distracts the basilisk, shouting hexes her father taught her, moving as fast as her Auror godfather, placing herself between her friend and danger with all the fury of her mother’s heart.

It’s Neville who the traitor comes hunting, cringing Peter Pettigrew whose own best friends caught him and denounced him, who slipped from Azkaban when his rat-form grew lean enough to wriggle between the bars. But it’s Harri who learns to cast the Patronus, and teaches it to all her friends - to Neville first, to Neville best. It’s Harri who is utterly unsurprised when the protector of Neville’s soul is a lion as large as an elephant, with a great shaggy mane and a roar that shakes the castle’s stones. Everyone _else_ stares with bafflement - Neville? Shy Neville? Surely his Patronus should be something small, harmless, kind - but Harri just laughs and says she knew it all along.

(In this world, Harri does not have to cling to little scraps and half-forgotten memories of her parents; she does not mourn them with every murmur of “You have your mother’s eyes.” In this world, her Patronus is not a stag, not her father’s Animagus form come to protect his only child. She is Lily’s daughter, flame-haired Lily with a heart of fire, and she knows it; and her Patronus is a dragon, breathing silver flame.)

It’s Neville whose name comes out of the Goblet, though he swears he never put it in; it’s Harri who believes him, who rages and snarls at the folly of the adults around them, who spends every evening helping Neville learn whatever spells she and Ron and Hermione can discover that might be useful. It’s Harri, too, who ends up spelled asleep beneath the lake, and wakes in a perfectly-cast Bubble-Head Charm to see Neville’s worried face. It’s Neville who rescues her and Gabrielle both, though. It’s Neville who faces down a dragon, not with the swiftness of a Firebolt - though Harri offers him hers - nor with brute force threats to the dragon’s eggs, but with calm eyes that meet the dragon’s, words in Parseltongue that soothe it, gentle hands that take the golden egg and leave the others unharmed. Neville’s learned how to deal with dragons: isn’t his best friend one, after all?

It’s Neville who goes into the maze, and Neville who comes out with a new scar and an old, old fear reborn.

It’s Harri who forms the Defense Association, collecting everything her Auror godfather and werewolf uncle, her Charms Mistress mother and Transfiguration Master father have ever told her. She teaches _anyone_ , because war is coming; she can smell it, she can _taste_ it. She finds her calling, there in the Room of Requirement, showing her fellow students how to defend themselves.

But it’s still Neville who wakes shaking from dreams of giant snakes and dreadful prophecies. It’s Neville who gets private Occlumency lessons from the Headmaster (and tells Harri all about them), and Neville who learns about Tom Riddle’s childhood (and tells Harri that, too).

It’s Neville who learns the Prophecy, and looks down at his hands - hands that burned a man to ash, when he was still a child - and knows that he must kill or be killed.

The Headmaster dies at Severus Snape’s hand, but this is a different Severus Snape - this is a Snape who never turned his coat, never realized his folly had doomed the only person he ever cared about beside himself, and who spent fifteen years in Azkaban before his master broke him free. Draco Malfoy, scared and bitter though he is, cannot cast the Killing Curse, and though he does not die at the Dark Lord’s hand for his failure, he often wishes that he had.

It’s Neville who goes on the run, looking for the shards of Voldemort’s soul, and Harri who is left behind to rally the children of Hogwarts. She does it well, fierce fiery Harri, and the children rallied behind her and the Headmistress face down Death Eaters eight times, and every time hold Hogwarts’ wards victorious, before Neville and Ron and Hermione - and a broken, miserable Draco Malfoy, who freed them from the Manor and whom they brought along in pity and compassion - return.

It’s Neville who walks to his death, holding love in his heart like an overflowing cup. It’s Harri who draws the Sword of Gryffindor from the Hat, and slays a snake. But it’s the two of them together, holding Neville’s wand in both their hands, just the way Harri has taught Neville half a hundred spells, who cast _Expelliarmus_ and send the Dark Lord flying to shatter on Hogwarts’ ancient walls.

And in the aftermath, when the Death Eaters have fallen and the dead have been gathered up, when Neville’s parents have at last been avenged, it’s Neville - brave Neville - lion-hearted Neville - who kisses Harri first.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the FFC prompt "Genderswap AU."


End file.
